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Aaron Broussard's 2007 depositionIn this excerpt from his 2007 deposition, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard testifies he was not present when drainage pump operators were ordered to evacuate on the day before Hurricane Katrina struck.

During the first eight days of testimony, the jury in Jefferson Parish's Hurricane Katrina flooding trial has heard numerous witnesses insist they knew nothing before the storm about the "doomsday plan" that pulled drainage pump operators far from their posts. It was, after all, a controversial plan that angered thousands of property owners -- and voters -- a plan that was activated only once and is no longer used. Even the attorney leading the parish's defense against the class-action lawsuit, Dennis Phayer, described the doomsday plan as "wrong-headed" and "ill conceived."

But the witnesses said then-Parish President Aaron Broussard absolutely knew, or should have known, that the pump operators could be sent 110 miles away to rural Washington Parish, just before the storm's eye crossed into southeast Louisiana. If plaintiffs' attorneys are to be believed, some 40,000 properties flooded as a result of that evacuation. At least one of those property owners, a prospective juror who wasn't chosen for the trial, said that in his family, it's called "the Broussard flood."

Whether the testimony thus far persuades the jury to hold the local government and Broussard liable for the flood damages is an open question. In the trial unfolding in the 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna, the defense says Jefferson is immune from liability under Louisiana emergency law and that parish officials' actions did not constitute "willful misconduct." Defense attorneys are expected to press these points as they begin presenting their own evidence starting Thursday.

Broussard, a lawyer whose political career crashed in January 2010 amid a criminal investigation of his administration, is serving a 46-month sentence in federal prison for political corruption unrelated to the storm. The 12 jurors and four alternates in the flooding trial aren't being told about the conviction, and the plaintiffs' attorneys didn't get to question him about it because the parish's attorneys elected not to have him testify.

That left jurors with his deposition, given in November 2007, more than two years before scandal forced him from office. In it, Broussard said he was not solely responsible for the decision to send the pump operators away. In fact, he said, he wasn't responsible at all, despite state and local law giving him and him alone the ultimate authority in the parish to order evacuations. He suggested it was the plan itself that sent the pump operators away.

"I made no decision in that regard," Broussard replied. "There was a plan in effect. The plan is based on benchmarks and guidelines of the emergency at hand. And that plan was implemented as designed."

The doomsday plan was put in place in 1998, when Tim Coulon was parish president. For years, officials said, it designated Louis Armstrong International Airport in Kenner as the evacuation site for parish workers. That changed during an internal review of emergency plans after Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and after structural engineers concluded that the airport would be unsafe during a severe hurricane. So just months before Katrina, emergency managers selected Mount Hermon as the new evacuation site.

When the plan was implemented just before Katrina made landfall, however, things went terribly wrong on several levels. Jefferson Parish workers arrived at Mount Hermon but lacked basic comforts, such as cots that didn't smell of mildew, plaintiffs' attorneys argued. Some employees arrived there only to be sent to other shelters across the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

And Katrina hammered Washington Parish. According to plaintiffs' attorneys, the storm left rural roads blocked with fallen trees and limbs, hindering Jefferson employees' rapid return to their posts. Pump operators trickled back to Metairie after the storm passed, and some were left at the southern end of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in need of rides to their stations, witnesses have testified,

Tim Whitmer

Who knew about the plan? Numerous officials in the parish's emergency management department did, according to testimony. Some on Broussard's executive staff had even doubted the wisdom of sending pump operators out of the parish, testimony has shown.

Tim Whitmer, the chief administrative officer oversaw daily operations, insisted he told Broussard on Aug. 26, three days before Katrina's landfall, that pump operator evacuations were possible. He recalled it was a very short conversation, held in a hallway at the emergency operations center, then in Marrero, and one designed to ensure Broussard was aware of the potential political backlash.

"I wanted to make sure his eyes were wide open to the possibilities," Whitmer testified.

Broussard denied it. He said Whitmer informed him that day of Katrina's forecast and the possibility the storm might hit Jefferson. But he said he knew nothing about pump operator evacuations until the personnel had already left on Aug. 28.

Walter Maestri

Walter Maestri, the emergency director during Katrina and an author of the doomsday plan, testified he had presented the plan with its Mount Hermon changes to Whitmer and that he thought Whitmer forwarded the plan to Broussard and to the Parish Council. Maestri even testified about the nine copies of the plan that were forwarded to the council. Yet, no record exists that the Parish Council ever saw it.

Broussard said in his deposition that Maestri never discussed evacuations with him. Broussard also said he did not know whether Maestri actually ordered the evacuations.

"My understanding, after the fact, is that that was part of the plan that was devised by emergency management," Broussard testified. He added: "I would let the plan speak for itself."

Parish officials said the plan was automatically triggered by the National Hurricane Center's forecast of a Category 4 or stronger storm striking the region. Katrina certainly fit that description for a spell, particularly the day before landfall, when local meteorologists said it threatened to eclipse other hurricanes that have long been part of the local lexicon: Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969.

The parish's attorneys consistently have told the jury, through questioning plaintiffs' witnesses, that it was under the specter of Katrina's Category 5 status that the decision was made to activate the doomsday plan. That is in line with the rationale that parish officials offered after Katrina for the evacuations: They were trying to keep Jefferson employees from getting killed on the job, even if it meant flooding the parish.

Plaintiffs' attorneys, with the benefit of hindsight, point out that Katrina came ashore Aug. 29 as a Category 3 storm, which would not have triggered the evacuations. And they argue that the plan was actually activated before the Category 5 forecasts.

Five men who were Parish Council members during Katrina -- and even the man who oversaw the drainage department when the storm plowed across the area -- swore under oath they knew nothing in advance about the policy. Yet it was included in the local government's emergency operations plan, which plaintiffs' attorneys say was required to be shared with numerous stakeholders, from the council to business and community leaders. Councilman Chris Roberts testified that he recalled Maestri telling local civil groups in speeches about the doomsday plan, but precisely what the emergency manager said to the groups is not known.

In implementing the plan, as Broussard explained it in his deposition, Maestri should have told all department heads. But when he testified last week, Kazem Alikhani, the drainage director at the time and now the public works director, said he first learned of the plan on the day before Katrina, when he was informed that his workers had to evacuate.

"Who told them that they could evacuate?" Jacobs asked Broussard.

"When a plan is implemented through the emergency management department, the department issues to the parish directors and administrators what phase of the plan is now in effect," Broussard testified. "And they give those instructions based on the timing of an approaching storm. How far out, what's the anticipated wind speed that will be coming into our area. And they give direction to the relevant departments of what to do next."

Alikhani joined his workers on the trip to Mount Hermon, even though the doomsday plan specified that he, as drainage director, should remain at the emergency operations center in Marrero. He testified he was unaware that, under the doomsday plan, he was required to remain in the parish.

Starting Friday, when the trial is scheduled to resume after a three-day recess triggered by the winter storm, the parish's attorneys will begin presenting their defense. Their challenge is to push aside the political whodunit that plaintiffs' attorneys have effectively presented to the jury.

Like it or not, the defense attorneys say, the parish had a plan and followed the plan as designed. And as such, Broussard, never known as a micromanager, can't be accused of "willful misconduct," they say.

Regardless, they say, under state law, the parish has discretionary immunity because the state and the parish had declared emergencies, giving their chief executives extraordinary authority - and extraordinary legal protection.

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NOTE: An earlier version of this story said trial would resume Thursday. The story has been updated to reflect a post-publication decision by the court to resume Friday.